Subject: (urth) Little Wolfe Moments

From: Patri10629 <patri10629 at aol.com>
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 1997 09:00:11 +0000

[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]

Thanks Dan Rabin for giving us a whole new thread.

I think it's worth pursuing, because as much as I enjoy of our analyses of
various textual mysteries, I think we also need to relish and notice the
bricks that make Wolfe's walls of narrative so great.

I appreciate your 2 examples from the New Sun books of unexpected violence.
He's very good at it. They remind me of that moment in the tunnels when Auk
lures the cannibal guy into proximity and they reminisce about old friends.
"He's dead," says Auk. "You, too." Ka-POW.

So sue me. I like ka-POWS:)

I hasten to add that we don't wish to degrade the discussion into a list of
America's Favorite Wolfe Moments of Violence.

So I'll mention another less gruesome passage in The Long Sun Books when
(after hundreds of pages where the POV is strictly, comfortably Human, while
we're still being rocked in the arms, as it were, of a soothing third person
omniscient narrator--rather like Silk and his assumed theology, eh?) suddenly
we're in the head of a bird who waxes pragmatic on the merits of Humans:
"They throw away the best parts of fish/food? The eyeballs." Could this be a
preview of the later paradigm shift when the actual narrator is revealed?

This moment staggered and charmed me when it happened. I adore Oreb. (I have
a weakness for birds. ) On rereading it...whew--I relearned the lesson that
Wolfe is never gratuitous, and there is Always much much more going on than
meets the eye:)

best

Patrick

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From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 1997 11:28:04 +0000

When I saw the movie Conact (very minor spoiler here) and Jodie Foster met
the blind guy, and it took her a few moments to realize he was blind, and
no one ever came out and said "oh, he's blind," I thought "they stole that
from the first few chapters of Shadow of the Torturer." 

-Rostrum